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Daniel Pinchbeck's latest blog posts
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9:45 AM PDT, July 4, 2008
The Presencing of the Other
The following piece was written as an "abstract" for a lecture on
orbs and other odd phenomena that I will be giving at the upcoming
Prophets Conference in Glastonbury, UK, titled "Orbs: Interacting with
Other Realms", from July 11 - 13. Information about attending this
conference, along with other essays by presenters, can be found at http://www.greatmystery.org/ . The piece is also under discussion at www.realitysandwich.com .
Whether the subject is crop circles, orbs, alien abductions, UFOs, miraculous appearances of the Virgin, spirit encounters in psychedelic states, and so on, we face the question of the existence of "the Other," of entities or energies that seem to have intention, and to exist largely beyond the current range of our perceptions, while they touch upon our world. Philosophers would agree that we don't know "things in themselves," but only those aspects of a thing that can be perceived by our senses and cognized by our mind. It is also clear that perception involves a tremendous amount of choice, and that choice is based upon our psychological disposition. We don't see the world as it, but to a large extent we see the world as we are.
I think this is true with all phenomena, but it is especially true with phenomena that lingers on the outer edge of the cultural imagination, such as otherworldly apparitions. It is almost as if we require a multisensory approach to these areas, as ordinary sense itself - logic or rationality - seems too limited. Rudolf Steiner defined higher modes of cognition as intuition, imagination, and inspiration. We can seek to make use of the faculty of "intellectual intuition" as a tool for exploration, taking care not to confuse thinking about something from believing in it, or feeling something from thinking we have knowledge about it. Making sure to keep thinking, feeling, believing, and willing separate requires intellectual discipline, and is the only way to approach what Steiner described as "the spiritual world" without getting lost in our own projections.
In my personal explorations of shamanism and my study of extraterrestrials, spirits, and so on, I have developed the hypothesis that this phenomena is neither real or imaginary. What seems to be happening is something subtler and harder to define: the alien "Other" is coming to presence within the human Psyche. This appears to be happening in phases and stages, or gradations, and it is a co-creative initiatory process for human consciousness, which has to go beyond dualistic or "either-or" logic in order to participate in the unfolding of this plot.
Carl June recognized that the flying saucer as an archetype represented a development in the collective Psyche - and the round shape of the UFO, like the circular form of most crop circles, made it a symbol of psychic wholeness. Even in its form, the apparently tangible object was a symbolic representation of the movement toward conscious integration of unconscious forces. Since the 1940s, the "flying saucer myth" has developed into a vast Wagnerian narrative, featuring shadowy meetings between ETs and US Presidents, Faustian bargains, underground (or Underworld) bases, and diabolical activities designed to create terror in abducted victims. This new myth seems to be about, in part, the failure of conventional science and the collapse of traditional authority structures, when faced with the Other as a revealed aspect or projection of the Psyche.
At this point in our evolution, the aliens that have come closest to revealing themselves do not seem to have our best interests at heart. However, if the encounter with the "Other" is a co-creative process and mutual coming-to-presencing, then this makes perfect sense: Rather than meeting the alien in any objective terms, we are attracting the alien we deserve, one that fits our cultural narrative of dominator control and predatory technology. When we shift our frequency of awareness and our level of resonance, we may attract, invite, or co-create a different level of alien presence within our world. Therefore, the personal work of developing our consciousness and initiating ourselves in a nondual frame of reference may have critical effects on a planetary scale.
As for the orbs, those floating willow wisps that continue to make startling appearances on thousands of digital images, I must admit that I do not yet have a conceptual container in which to place them. I look forward to the Orbs Conference to develop my own perspective on this phenomena. They may be one other way that an intelligent "Other" is sneaking its way into our mind-frame at this point in time, or they may be plasma particles that collect like dust on a lens.
One way I have developed of studying any abstruse area is to observe, not just the phenomena itself, but what happens to the people who find themselves fascinated, and sometimes transfixed, by the subject. Are they becoming more presently aware, socially active, and open-hearted? Or is the phenomena leading them out of themselves (into what Steiner saw as Luciferic diversions from humanity's proper path)? At a time when we are faced with accelerating climate change, global famine and water shortages based on our civilization's systemic use of resources, any spiritual path or esoteric study only has value if it leads us back to active engagement with our political, material, and social reality - that is, increasingly, my opinion, in any case.
3:26 PM PDT, May 9, 2008
Goodbye, Albert!
To commemorate Albert Hofmann's life and legacy, Reality Sandwich will be screening the film "Hofmann's Potion" -- featuring Albert Hofmann, Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, and many pioneers -- and the recent History Channel documentary featuring Wade Davis, " Peyote to LSD: A Psychedelic Odyssey", this Sunday night, at 7:30 pm. The screening will be followed by an audience discussion with John Perry Barlow and Daniel Pinchbeck.
Goodbye Albert!
This Sunday night, May 11, 7:30 pm
at The Wild Project
195 East 3rd Street
New York NY 10009
Contribution: $10
3:25 PM PDT, May 9, 2008
Hi folks,
Reality Sandwich just published an essay on what the production of biofuels is doing to world hunger, and how "environmental nationalism" could become a new type of authoritarian threat. I think the piece is incredibly timely and important. I have put the first part of the essay below.
A link to the entire essay is here:
http://realitysandwich.com/biofuels_and_rise_natio nalistic_environmentalism#new
If you agree that the piece should be widely read, please use the tools at the end of the piece to promote it via StumbleUpon, Digg, etc. Thanks for taking the time to think about the state of our world.
Yours,
Daniel
Biofuels and the Rise of Nationalistic Environmentalism
Alexis Zeigler
The current food crisis was terribly predictable, and has been anticipated for several years now. Starting about seven years ago, the world started using more food than it was producing, steadily eating into stored supplies. As grain stores have shrunk year by year, the biofuel movement has taken off like a virus. Rapid biofuel expansion has been propelled by a concern over American dependence on imported oil, as well as concerns about "sustainable" energy supplies and carbon emissions.
Meanwhile, environmentalists concerned about our future food supply were sounding the alarm, and being ignored. For some, it was terribly obvious that a disaster was brewing. While there has been considerable debate about the energy returns from various biofuels, no one debates the basic math. It takes about 10 acres to feed a car on ethanol for a year.[1] The world supply of grainland is about three-tenths of an acre per person, and is expected to shrink to less than a quarter acre by 2020.[2] Clearly direct market competition between rich and poor for land to feed cars or people could be disastrous. Given the relentless fall in holdover stocks - grain in storage - over the last few years, price spikes were inevitable.
As an environmental activist, I was wary when my friends started enthusiastically grabbing used cooking oil from behind restaurants. I did not think they were aware of the political Frankenstein they were creating. American consumers are both enormously powerful and very disconnected from the natural world or any consideration of the limits of the Earth on which we all reside. Now that a movement has been created to expand biofuel production rapidly, with support from everyone from President Bush to large fraction of the environmental movement, it will be difficult to stop.
The growth of the biofuel craze has been very rapid. For those that would argue that biofuel does not compete with food supplies, the actual behavior of the market, even at this early stage, belies such contentions. Radical increases in food prices caused in large part by biofuel expansion have triggered food riots in Haiti, Guinea, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Mexico. (That list is likely to be longer by the time you read this.) Even in Italy consumers have caused public disturbances over the rising price of food. Biodiesel plants built in Malaysia now lie idle, never having been put into production, because those odd Malaysian peasants are demanding the right to eat their palm oil. Meanwhile, in Swaziland, a small impoverished nation in South Africa where forty percent of its people are facing food shortages, the government decided last year to start exporting biofuel.[3] The World Bank has stated that 33 countries may be at risk from destabilization because of skyrocketing food prices. [4]
When I first started writing about this issue several years ago, global grain stocks were at their lowest point in over 30 years. Grain stocks have continued to fall. We are perched on a precipice where a drought or other disruption of production in grain-producing regions could cause severe instability in both food and energy prices. Such instability could trigger widespread famine. Such concerns are not restricted to fringe critics. Goldman Sachs is predicting that "vulnerable regions of the world face the risk of famine over the next three years as rising energy costs spill over into a food crunch..."[5] The number of people in the world suffering severe undernourishment was declining until the late 1990s. Now it is rising.
Currently, 5% of the global food supply is going into biofuels, and that fraction is growing very rapidly - some would say virally.[6] If the current rate of expansion of biofuel continues, ethanol plants will be using almost all of the U.S. corn crop within 5-7 years. In response to this growth rate and the dangerous potential outcomes it implies, the United Nations Rapporteur on Food has called for a moratorium on biofuels expansion. The European Union is drafting legislation so that they will only import biofuels that are produced "sustainably," but the definition of that term is still up for debate.
The carbon-saving aspect of biofuels has turned out to be an illusion as well. Millions of acres of forest, including enormous areas of tropical rainforests in Malaysia and Brazil, are being destroyed to produce biofuels. On average, biofuels add more carbon to the atmosphere than fossil fuels.[7]
(... piece continues on our site)
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Daniel Pinchbeck sent the following posts to customers who purchased Jeff Koons & Andy Warhol: Flowers